My ears pricked up recently when a guest on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs
selected as one of the songs he’d like to be stranded with a track by
Louis Armstrong – recorded live in Prague. The LP Louis Armstrong in
Prague: Lucerna 1965 was extremely familiar from the racks of the city’s
secondhand shops. But I had never picked up a copy.

Photo: Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons Free Domain
In the end I tracked down two recordings of the show, one the actual album
itself, the other a longer recording made by Czech Radio. The highlight of
the concert is a version of the phenomenal folk song St. James Infirmary,
which Armstrong had first performed in his trailblazing Hot Five and Hot
Seven days in late 1920s New Orleans.

Otherwise, frankly, the LP is by no means a classic. Satchmo (from Satchel
Mouth) was already an elder statesman in his mid 60s, and this was after
the phase in which he did smoother re-recordings of several of his
greatest
numbers. But still, it is an exciting document of what must have been one
of the events of the decade for local music fans.

Photo: Czech TV
The only video of the show on YouTube appears to be a Czech TV clip of So
Long Dearie, beneath which one user has cutely written: “I was
there 47
years ago present there on this concert at Lucerna Prague. It was
exceptional event.” I don’t doubt it for a second, Vladao6761.

Armstrong was here for an entire week and it has to have been a gigantic
deal to have such a much-loved megastar and musical originator in town.
This was after the darkest period of Communist rule, though the Prague
Spring was still a few years into the future.

Jiří Suchý, photo: YouTube
Two local stars – Jiřís Suchý and Šlitr, of the Semafor musical
theatre – opened the show, with a long introduction touching on
Satchmo’s beginnings in reform school and the chances of their ending up
in one. Humorous as it was, heaven knows what the great man made of it, if
it was translated for him.

The most charming moment of the show comes at the very end, when Louis
Armstrong thanks the people of Prague for their hospitality and praises
the
city’s jazz clubs. Prague, he says, in that amazing, rich speaking
voice,
will remain in the band's hearts for as long as they live.

Lubomír Dorůžka, photo: Tomáš Vodňanský / Archive of ČRo
The extended Czech Radio recording also captures the subsequent
interpretation of Armstrong’s words by his unofficial guide, Lubomír
Dorůžka. Today Mr. Dorůžka is almost 89 and is regarded as the doyen
of
jazz writing in this country. His son Petr had a regular music show here
on
Radio Prague for several years and the similarity between his dad’s
voice
in 1965 and Petr’s today is uncanny.

Speaking of similar voices, I was struck by a familiar sound when I was
walking across Old Town Square the other day and came upon a small
Dixieland
band entertaining tourists.

Petr Dorůžka, photo: Archive of ČRo 7
Their singer was doing a full-on imitation of Satchmo’s distinctive
gruff vocal style. But in Czech. It was kind of terrible but made me
smile.
And it crossed my mind that – albeit in a small and bizarre way –
Louis
Armstrong is still in Prague.